Annie Dillard Quotes

One must live as if it would be forever, and as if one might die each moment. Always both at once.

There's no future. There's no past. I live each moment as my last.

Life - how curious is that habit that makes us think it is not here, but elsewhere.

The more you live in the present moment, the more the fear of death disappears.

The acceptance of death gives you more of a stake in life, in living life happily, as it should be lived. Living for the moment.

I don’t think of dying, I think of being here now.

It is possible to depart from life at this moment. Have this thought in mind whenever you act, speak, or think.

There's nothing in the future and there's nothing in the past. There is only this one moment, and you've got to make it last.

And if there is not any such thing as a long time, nor the rest of your lives, nor from now on, but there is only now, why then now is the thing to praise and I am very happy with it.

Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn't disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into the each moment. We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last.

Live each day as your last, and tomorrow is forever

You can lead a happy life if you recognize that it's limited and completely unpredictable from one moment to the next.

Make the universe your companion, always bearing in mind the true nature of things-mountains and rivers, trees and grasses, and humanity-and enjoy the falling blossoms and the scattering leaves.

Time is just an illusion. What you need is to live this very moment. That is all that matters.

It's not that "today is the first day of the rest of my life," but that now is all there is of my life.

We cross infinity with every step; we meet eternity in every second.

In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages. Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but when I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains.

Eternity isn't some later time. Eternity isn't a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now which thinking and time cuts out. This is it. And if you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere. And the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life.

I am not a person who I am thinking about what I achieved or what I don't achieve. I am a person who try to enjoy the moment. That's what I do.

What I like about that is it kind of puts you in your place. Don't count on being remembered. Just live now, you know?

I like to have a good experience. That's all you have.

He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.

The one philosophy or religion I find I am most close to is the Buddhist one. I think it is the one that respects others and the one that doesn't say that this is the only way. I think happiness is the moment when - if you've forgotten those little things - they suddenly come back into focus for you.

I know I can walk through the world, along the shore or under the trees, with my mind filled with things of little importance, in full self-attendance. A condition I can't really call being alive.

The future is a concept, it doesn't exist. There is no such thing as tomorrow. There never will be, because time is always now. That's one of the things we discover when we stop talking to ourselves and stop thinking. We find there is only present, only an eternal now.